The four corporate industries that rule Australia

The Forbes Billionaires list released last month included almost two dozen Australians in its ranks. Among them was mining boss Gina Rinehart, who has now become the richest person in Australia with a fortune of $17 billion.

This placed her 36th in the world, but her net wealth was still double that of her nearest fellow Australian billionaire, chief executive of commodities firm Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg.

Also on the list were finance elites, gaming kingpins and several other mining corporation owners.

The Australia Institute’s (TAI) recently released reportCorporate Power in Australia offers vital insight into how these billionaires amass their fortunes and then entrench their wealth further by wielding power over government policy.

Research from the United States has exposed the role of big money on national policy and its effect on the working class. The report said: “Big business exerts influence through campaign contributions, influence over university funding, sponsorship of think tanks and in other ways that create an agenda for low tax for the rich, low entitlements for the poor and poor services for the middle class.”

TAI then asked which industries in Australia appear to have “disproportionate influence” over governments and how they rule, by using a subjective appraisal based on recent examples and evidence.

It concluded that the four most powerful industries in Australia were mining, banks, superannuation and gambling.

Mining

The mining industry is said to generate up to 21.6% of Australia’s wealth, although about 83% of the industry is owned by overseas companies.

That said, Rinehart’s wealth more than demonstrates the type of “distribution” going on for the remaining 17%.

As for the companies, BHP Billiton posted a profit of $14.7 billion last year. Rio Tinto had a half-year profit of $4.88 billion.

Mining companies pay royalties to state governments so that they can dig, drill and extract the minerals owned by government on behalf of its citizens. TAI says royalties for coal and iron ore are one tenth of their market value. So mining companies have the “ability to acquire minerals from the state government at a low price before exporting them for a high price” and reap huge profits.

These profits are “enhanced further” by huge tax concessions and cuts. The mining industry pays the lowest rate of tax on profits than any industry in Australia. Any attempts by the federal government to raise taxes on mining industry super-profits results in a multi-million-dollar smear and fear campaign, vicious lobbying, blackmail threats to move overseas and — literally — the overthrow of the elected leader of the country.

Add to that the mining industry’s ability to persuade governments to fund the transport and ports that ship Australia’s resources overseas.

They have also successfully managed to prevent any serious effort to address climate change; the renewable resources boom required would render the minerals their profits depend on worthless.

TAI concludes that it is the mining industry’s inscrutable ability to manipulate the will of government that makes it so powerful: “If power is the ability to write government tax policy while the same government builds your infrastructure for you then the mining industry has plenty.”

The lobbying power of these companies is not big news to most Australians, and many don’t assume it is a problem. Rio Tinto can finance Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton, who is critically favourable of Aboriginal people selling their land to be mined in the Pilbara. It can also fund a journalist’s trip to the Pilbara, who then publishes a story in the national media slamming detractors of Langton’s views.

This is met with little more than shrugs, and “What can be expected?”

Similar can be said of the highly concentrated banking sector.

Banking

The “big four” banks in Australia — the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, NAB and Westpac — are the most concentrated and profitable banks in the world, TAI’s report said. Thanks to deregulation in the 1980s, banks raised their market share from half to 90%. Of this, the big four raised their share by two-thirds to 83%.

Most Australians are more than aware of the banks’ petulant reluctance to pass on interest rate cuts and their ability to force extortion-level fees onto customers.

TAI said the banks had taken on the characteristics of a powerful oligopoly and, as a united front, were able to “stare down” parliament to win increased market share and profits. This took place in 2009, when the banks “unilaterally increased their mortgage lending rates above the increase in ‘official rates’.”

The two big parties and the Greens all proposed plans to “reign in the banks”. But the banks managed to “get the parliament to do the exact opposite of what they said they would”, so the banks “clearly have significant power”.

Superannuation

The third industry named in the report, superannuation, almost entirely avoids scrutiny but manages about $1000 billion of workers’ funds that are compulsorily deducted each year. From this, super funds are able to extract up to 4% in fees, reaping the industry $20 billion in profit.

Despite this, the super industry doesn’t have to explain itself, even avoiding scrutiny under the Henry tax review.

Gambling

Last, the gambling industry is incredibly lucrative. Gaming heavyweight and casino owner James Packer was the third richest Australian on the Forbes’ rich list.

According to TAI, the gaming industry can influence development planning guideines — such as the changes made to allow James Packer’s Sydney Harbour casino — and shut down regulation changes it doesn’t like, such as forcing Prime Minister Julia Gillard to break a promise to independent MP Andrew Wilkie around the introduction of minor reforms to tackle gambling addiction.

TAI pointed out how extraordinary this is: “If the ability to force a prime minister to break a written promise and risk losing her governing majority is evidence of power then the gambling industry has plenty.”

The overwhelming message of TAI’s report is that the industries it discusses have the power to both howl outrage and veto policies that affect their profits or autonomy, but also to instigate near silence when policies that favour them pass through parliament.

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superannuation and gambling surprised me..i knew the other 2 dominated..nothing about farming or agriculture..times change..

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” The Jesuits…are a secret society – a sort of Masonic order – with superadded features of revolting odiousness, and a thousand times more dangerous. ” – Samuel Morse

” If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. ” – HRH Prince Phillip

“ I have learnt most of all from the Jesuit Order. So far, there has been nothing more imposing on earth than the hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church. A good part of that organization I have transported direct to my own party. The Catholic Church must be held up as an example. I will tell you a secret. I am founding an order. In Himmler (who would become head of the Nazi party) I see our Ignatius de Loyola (Jesuit founder). ” – Adolph Hitler

” In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day. ” – Jacques Cousteau

“ Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws. ” – Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

” No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation. ” – David Spangler UN

” We know in the not too distant future, a half dozen corporations are going to control the media. ” – Time Warner

” The high office of President has been used to ferment a plot to destroy the Americans freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight. ” – jfk

” The Jesuits are a MILITARY organization, not a religious order. Their chief is a general of an army, not the mere father abbot of a monastery. And the aim of this organization is power – power in its most despotic exercise – absolute power, universal power, power to control the world by the volition of a single man. Jesuitism is the most absolute of despotisms – and at the same time the greatest and most enormous of abuses. ” – Napoleon Bonaparte

” … in politics nothing is accidental. If something happens, be assured it was planned this way. ” – Franklin D Roosevelt

” It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country – the United States of America – are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated MOST of the wars of Europe. ” – Marquis de LaFayette

” The society will be dominated by an elite of persons free from traditional values who will have no doubt in fulfilling their objectives by means of purged techniques with which they will influence the behavior of people and will control and watch the society in all details. It will become possible to exert a practically permanent watch on each citizen of the world. ” – Zbigniew Brzezinski

” The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are’nt behind the scenes. ” – Benjamin Disraeli

” If we like it or not, we will have a One World Government. The question is if it will be achieved through consent or through conquest. ” – james warburg

” The United Nations is but a long range, international banking apparatus clearly set up for financial and economic profit by a small group of powerful One World revolutionaries, hungry for profit and power. ” – curtis dall

“ It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am. ” – George washington

“ There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know. ” – harry truman

” It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. ” – George Carlin

” I will warn you against him (the Dajjal,anti-christ)… but I tell you about him something of which no prophet told his nation before me. You should know that he is one-eyed, and Allah is not one-eyed. ” – Prophet Mohammed

” Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ” – Edward Bernays CBS

” And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival… It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist… The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ” – George Orwell

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